IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/56710.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Impact of strengthening Intellectual Property Rights Regime on income inequality: An econometric analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Saini, Swati
  • Mehra, Meeta K

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of strengthening Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) on within-country income inequality for a cross-section of 65 developed and developing countries for the time period 1995-2009.Our results indicate that strengthening of IPRs has led to an increase in income inequality in WTO-member developing countries after they started modifying their national IPR regimes to conform to the TRIPs requirements. IPRs tend to raise income inequality by generating a more skewed distribution of wages. Stronger IPRs increase the demand for skilled labor force as it raises the return on R&D activities. This causes a relative increase in skilled labor wages, creating a wage bias in favor of skilled labor against unskilled labor, thus aggravating income inequality within a developing country. Moreover, the effect on inequality is more pronounced for developing countries that are experiencing higher per capita GDP growth rates. As for the developed countries included in the sample, the analysis seems to suggest that IPRs have led to a decline in income inequality over the study period.

Suggested Citation

  • Saini, Swati & Mehra, Meeta K, 2014. "Impact of strengthening Intellectual Property Rights Regime on income inequality: An econometric analysis," MPRA Paper 56710, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 12 Jun 2014.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:56710
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/56710/1/MPRA_paper_56710.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/75456/9/MPRA_paper_75456.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/75456/1/MPRA_paper_56710.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/90220/1/MPRA_paper_90220.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gene M. Grossman & Edwin L.-C. Lai, 2004. "International Protection of Intellectual Property," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1635-1653, December.
    2. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2002. "Growth Is Good for the Poor," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 195-225, September.
    3. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    4. Aghion, Philippe & Howitt, Peter, 1992. "A Model of Growth through Creative Destruction," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 323-351, March.
    5. Howard White & Edward Anderson, 2001. "Growth versus Distribution: Does the Pattern of Growth Matter?," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 19(3), pages 267-289, September.
    6. Nathalie Chusseau & Joël Hellier, 2013. "Inequality in Emerging Countries," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Joël Hellier & Nathalie Chusseau (ed.), Growing Income Inequalities, chapter 2, pages 48-75, Palgrave Macmillan.
    7. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1998. "New ways of looking at old issues: inequality and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 259-287.
    8. Chen, Yongmin & Puttitanun, Thitima, 2005. "Intellectual property rights and innovation in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 474-493, December.
    9. Maskus, Keith E. & Penubarti, Mohan, 1995. "How trade-related are intellectual property rights?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 227-248, November.
    10. Angus C. Chu, 2009. "Macroeconomic Effects of Intellectual Property Rights: A Survey," IEAS Working Paper : academic research 09-A007, Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
    11. Bun, Maurice J. G. & Kiviet, Jan F., 2003. "On the diminishing returns of higher-order terms in asymptotic expansions of bias," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 145-152, May.
    12. John Carter, 2007. "An Empirical Note on Economic Freedom and Income Inequality," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 163-177, January.
    13. Edward Anderson & Maria Ana Jalles D'Orey & Maren Duvendack & Lucio Esposito, 2017. "Does Government Spending Affect Income Inequality? A Meta-Regression Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 961-987, September.
    14. Helpman, Elhanan, 1993. "Innovation, Imitation, and Intellectual Property Rights," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(6), pages 1247-1280, November.
    15. Anderson, Edward, 2005. "Openness and inequality in developing countries: A review of theory and recent evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1045-1063, July.
    16. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    17. Ginarte, Juan C. & Park, Walter G., 1997. "Determinants of patent rights: A cross-national study," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 283-301, October.
    18. Bergh, Andreas & Nilsson, Therese, 2010. "Do liberalization and globalization increase income inequality?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 488-505, December.
    19. Basu, Parantap & Guariglia, Alessandra, 2007. "Foreign Direct Investment, inequality, and growth," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 824-839, December.
    20. Berggren, Niclas, 1999. "Economic Freedom and Equality: Friends or Foes?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 100(3-4), pages 203-223, September.
    21. Jere R. Behrman & Nancy Birdsall & Miguel Székely, 2003. "Economic Policy and Wage Differentials in Latin America," Working Papers 29, Center for Global Development.
    22. Mattias Lundberg & Lyn Squire, 2003. "The simultaneous evolution of growth and inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(487), pages 326-344, April.
    23. Schneider, Patricia Higino, 2005. "International trade, economic growth and intellectual property rights: A panel data study of developed and developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 529-547, December.
    24. Guido Cozzi & Silvia Galli, 2009. "Upstream Innovation Protection: Common Law Evolution and the Dynamics of Wage Inequality," Working Papers 2009_20, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    25. Frederick Solt, 2009. "Standardizing the World Income Inequality Database," LIS Working papers 496, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    26. Asteriou, Dimitrios & Dimelis, Sophia & Moudatsou, Argiro, 2014. "Globalization and income inequality: A panel data econometric approach for the EU27 countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 592-599.
    27. Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), 2005. "Handbook of Economic Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    28. Sunil Kanwar & Robert Evenson, 2003. "Does intellectual property protection spur technological change?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 55(2), pages 235-264, April.
    29. Rod Falvey & Neil Foster & David Greenaway, 2006. "Intellectual Property Rights and Economic Growth," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(4), pages 700-719, November.
    30. Branko Milanovic, 2005. "Can We Discern the Effect of Globalization on Income Distribution? Evidence from Household Surveys," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 19(1), pages 21-44.
    31. Adams, Samuel, 2008. "Globalization and income inequality: Implications for intellectual property rights," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 725-735.
    32. Barro, Robert J, 2000. "Inequality and Growth in a Panel of Countries," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 5-32, March.
    33. Park, Walter G., 2008. "International patent protection: 1960-2005," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 761-766, May.
    34. Calderon, Cesar & Chong, Alberto, 2001. "External sector and income inequality in interdependent economies using a dynamic panel data approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 225-231, May.
    35. Meschi, Elena & Vivarelli, Marco, 2009. "Trade and Income Inequality in Developing Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 287-302, February.
    36. Chin, J.C. & Grossman, G.M., 1988. "Intellectual Property Rigths And North-South Trade," Papers 143, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Public and International Affairs.
    37. Kevin Sylwester, 2005. "Foreign direct investment, growth and income inequality in less developed countries," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 289-300.
    38. Changkyu Choi, 2006. "Does foreign direct investment affect domestic income inequality?," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(12), pages 811-814.
    39. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    40. Cragg, Michael Ian & Epelbaum, Mario, 1996. "Why has wage dispersion grown in Mexico? Is it the incidence of reforms or the growing demand for skills?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 99-116, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thanos Fragkandreas, 2022. "Three Decades of Research on Innovation and Inequality: Causal Scenarios, Explanatory Factors, and Suggestions," Working Papers 60, Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research, revised Feb 2022.
    2. Bhattacharya, Sourav & Chakraborty, Pavel & Chatterjee, Chirantan, 2022. "Intellectual property regimes and wage inequality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    3. Christian Kiedaisch, 2021. "Growth and welfare effects of intellectual property rights when consumers differ in income," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(4), pages 1121-1170, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hudson, John & Minea, Alexandru, 2013. "Innovation, Intellectual Property Rights, and Economic Development: A Unified Empirical Investigation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 66-78.
    2. Chu, Angus, 2021. "Macroeconomic Effects of Intellectual Property Rights: An Updated Survey," MPRA Paper 110839, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Wen-Hsien Liu, 2016. "Intellectual Property Rights, FDI, R&D and Economic Growth: A Cross-country Empirical Analysis," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(7), pages 983-1004, July.
    4. Chiara Franco & Elisa Gerussi, 2013. "Trade, foreign direct investments (FDI) and income inequality: Empirical evidence from transition countries," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(8), pages 1131-1160, December.
    5. Anja, Breitwieser & Neil, Foster, 2012. "Intellectual property rights, innovation and technology transfer: a survey," MPRA Paper 36094, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Chu, Lan Khanh & Hoang, Dung Phuong, 2020. "How does economic complexity influence income inequality? New evidence from international data," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 44-57.
    7. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Biancini, Sara & Paillacar, Rodrigo, 2023. "Intellectual property rights protection and trade: An empirical analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    8. Chu, Angus C. & Cozzi, Guido & Galli, Silvia, 2014. "Stage-dependent intellectual property rights," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 239-249.
    9. Samina Sabir & Nighat Aziz, 2018. "Impact of Health and Education on Income Inequality: Evidence from Selected Developing Countries," Business & Economic Review, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, Pakistan, vol. 10(4), pages 83-102, December.
    10. Angus C. Chu, 2009. "Macroeconomic Effects of Intellectual Property Rights: A Survey," IEAS Working Paper : academic research 09-A007, Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
    11. Stefan Jestl & Sandra M. Leitner & Sebastian Leitner, 2022. "The relative impact of different forces of globalization on wage inequality: A fresh look at the EU experience," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 1003-1037, September.
    12. Ahmad, Mahyudin, 2016. "Middle income trap and income inequality: Empirical evidence on the distributional effect of economic liberalization and political regime," MPRA Paper 76437, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Carole Ibrahim, 2022. "Globalization and income inequality in developing countries: a GMM approach," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 2(8), pages 1-14, August.
    14. Mon, Yi Yi & Kakinaka, Makoto, 2020. "Regional trade agreements and income inequality: Are there any differences between bilateral and plurilateral agreements?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 136-153.
    15. MacDonald, Ronald & Majeed, Muhammad Tariq, 2010. "Distributional and Poverty Consequences of Globalization: A Dynamic Comparative Analysis for Developing Countries," SIRE Discussion Papers 2010-62, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    16. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2020. "Aid for Trade flows and Poverty Reduction in Recipient-Countries," EconStor Preprints 213807, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    17. Angus C. Chu, 2022. "Patent policy and economic growth: A survey," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 90(2), pages 237-254, March.
    18. Simplice A, Asongu, 2012. "Fighting software piracy: which IPRs laws (treaties) matter in Africa?," MPRA Paper 43590, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Jakub Bartak & Łukasz Jabłoński, 2020. "Inequality and growth: What comes from the different inequality measures?," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 185-212, April.
    20. Kim, Yee Kyoung & Lee, Keun & Park, Walter G. & Choo, Kineung, 2012. "Appropriate intellectual property protection and economic growth in countries at different levels of development," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 358-375.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Developing countries; Globalization; Inequality; Intellectual Property Rights;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F62 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Macroeconomic Impacts
    • F63 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Economic Development
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:56710. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.